Admittedly, this odyssey you’re about to embark on may be longer than most of YAA’s blog posts, but I believe it’s worth your time, if only because it features not me, but Harrison Hart, a ConocoPhillips Youth of Distinction Awards (YODA) finalist for sportsmanship.

Harrison, who is a Grade 11 student at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir, having just returned from placing second at the US nationals (a tournament for which an invitation was specially extended to his team), was kind enough to make time for this interview. Never at a loss for words for every question I asked, no matter how superficial, he always managed to answer with some insightful anecdote or observation.

So read ahead to where I, arguably the least athletic YAA blogger, had the opportunity to discuss sportsmanship, the competitive spirit, and the art of winning and losing with Harrison Hart, quite likely one of the most athletic high school students in Alberta.

How did you first get into athletics?

I have to say it’s probably because of my school where there’s a lot of tournaments held. My gym class really pushed me to be better at stuff. So as soon as Grade 7 rolled around and all these new teams were available for me, I just decided to go and try them all. And that’s where I even found volleyball too.

Is volleyball the main sport that you’re involved in?

Right now, yeah, it is.

Do you have any other sports that you really enjoy?

I’ve always really liked basketball, but I haven’t been able to play it that much just because of time. I’ve also been trying to pursue track a lot.

I looked up the definition of sportsmanship, and Merriam-Webster gave me “conduct, as in fairness, respect for one’s opponent and graciousness in winning or losing.” Do you have any personal addendums to this definition?

I think it mostly means someone who betters the sport and doesn’t worsen it, if that makes sense? It’s someone who makes their opponent feel they are performing their best and even if they’re not, encouraging them, even though you are competing at sometimes a high level or just recreational.

Have there been any major figures, role models, mentors, etc, thus far?

Definitely. For me it’s always been my coaches who I look up to the most. A teacher at my school, Ms. Preston, the gym teacher, she was my volleyball coach for three years because she stuck to my team. She really taught me how to manage to a leadership role and how to apply it and better the team. Mostly because of my height I was able to outhit people and just be a bit faster, so she did a really good job of making sure I stayed level and didn’t become cocky or didn’t think I was the best. And besides that, just this year I had a coach, Kent Greves, who’s one of the best setters that have come out of Canada. I was really happy about that. He taught me a lot of lessons that I’m going to pull away and keep for the rest of my life.

What did he teach you beyond volleyball?

Well, one thing that he told us once in a timeout, which I’ve remembered ever since, is that he told us how to earn respect. He said that respect isn’t something that people just give you. You earn it when people bat you down to the bottom and you fight your way back up, which I’ve realized is really true. You can’t just expect people to walk up to you and give you the same respect as someone that they’ve looked up to all their life. You have to do certain things to earn it and by doing that you can solidify a good relationship with that person.

How about your parents, how have they helped you through your athletic journey?

My dad’s always been really into hockey so he gets the basics of training hard and practicing a lot and getting extra hours in. But you know, technically he’s not accustomed to it, but he’s still done a great job of just providing opportunities for me. I’m very grateful for that because if my parents weren’t this way I would not have accomplished half of the things I have so far.

What has been one of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in either high school or athletics?

I think the first would be my lack of fundamentals. I always wanted to try to do the next thing or try a more advanced move in volleyball or try and learn how to do a fancy shot when I quickly skipped over the fundamentals, like passing, blocking, serving, which have now become the weaker parts of my game. I’ve had to catch up to my teammates just because I simply didn’t want to put the work in.

What motivations do you have to continue working so hard?

For me, I become a very competitive person when I compete, but not to the point where it poisons my attitude or anything like that. But I constantly feel that if I’m not the best on my team or the best at my sport in the league or anything like that then I am among the bottom and for me that’s the worst case scenario that I can dream of. I don’t want to be just the common player or someone that just doesn’t stick out in any way. I constantly want to be the person that everyone idols or something like that. So the biggest motivation for me is just finding that player, then thinking, oh, I want to be better than him. Putting the hours in, looking at their game and seeing what they’re doing and doing everything I can to, I don’t want to say beat them because that’s kind of negative, but just become on their level.

After putting a lot of hard work in, losing is difficult. So how do you cope? How is it for you?

Especially this season, with coming in second for the Canadian nationals then coming in second for the American nationals, I’ve learned that the best thing you can do is think of what you’ve learned from that experience and what you can change. Where, for the Canadian nationals, our team was very tired because it’s a three-day tournament and we were inside the Olympic Oval all day, so we just came in and we weren’t prepared to fight for every point. The team that we were facing, they were the champions from last year and they came in with a more confident attitude and they got more energy for the game, so from that experience I’ve really learned that you have to be ready to fight at any moment no matter what opponent you’re facing and that’s really helped me.

Also for the American nationals, we played like we were nervous because it was on the fourth of July, we were the only Canadian team there, so not a person in the crowd was cheering for us and even the commentator wasn’t on our side. That made us really nervous: especially the thought of there being different scouts and universities looking at our playing and judging us. We just played like we were nervous. We didn’t try to go for the strongest shot or the more risky shots; we just went for the very safe ones. Playing against a team like we did, who were very strong defensively, that didn’t work at all. We would have our very high moments where we would have a big kill and that would give us energy. But then as soon as we missed the next point we kind of shrunk back into our shell and played like we were nervous. And once that happened there was no way we were going to beat them. Though, from there I learned to just go out and not think about using the crowd and just ignore the surroundings, but to just try and play my game. So I don’t know, maybe dealing with adversity is like losing a big match, which comes just once in a lifetime. It’s taught me you can’t think of the negative sides of it, you have to forget them and try to focus on the small positives that come with it.

How do you regain momentum after losing it?

Well, our team’s a very quiet team, which is something that we’ve always hated because when we’re winning we don’t smile, we don’t do anything like that, we just kind of brush it off and like, oh yeah, that’s always what we do. It works well when we’re winning but when we’re losing and we’re not talking, we lose all energy and effort. So the biggest way to counter it and try to gain momentum is to be screaming and ready to fight and just be rallying and talking to your teammates. If they mess up, it’s going up to them and being, it’s okay, you’ll get the next one or you’ll do better next time. That just really helps keep everyone coolheaded and just make sure that they’re ready for the next point instead of just thinking about how they messed up and how they’re losing it for the team or something like that.

In your opinion, how much of the game is mental and how much is physical?

I think, just because we’re separated by a net, it’s a lot more just managing your side which is a very mental game. You can be a team that’s not as strong or as big or even as skilled as your opponent but as long as you do in with a good attitude and you approach with an attitude that we’re going to win, we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to win, then no matter what the opponent throws at you, you’re going to win that game. It’s something that we’ve learned because we were supposed to be the top, most skilled team in Canada, but we weren’t prepared to fight. The teams that were coming against us, well, because we were at the top, we didn’t have anything to try and fight for, whereas every team beneath us wanted to try and take our position. So I think volleyball’s a very mental game. You also have to be very physically fit, but it’s mostly mental.

Has there been any game so far, perhaps the one you just last played, that has been the game of your high school career? The one you’ll think about years later?

For negative, I would say the US nationals. For our team it was the worst game we played of the whole tournament. By all means it was heartbreaking for us, because we travelled all this way and braved all these other teams and then to just get so close to our goal and lose it was one of the worst moments of this past year for me. But it wasn’t so much that, it was the fact that I wasn’t given an opportunity to showcase my skill. I’m new on the team I’m playing on right now and it’s my first year. I’ve joined a group of people who’ve been playing together for four years at this point so the coach didn’t know me as well, none of the other guys knew me as well as their friends, and so when it came down to competition the coach didn’t want to chance it and put me in and not know how well I was going to react in a high pressure situation. They just went with their usual line up, by all means very strong players, who they knew would get the job done, but in the end when it wasn’t working out in the first set, the coaches decided to stick with it and force the chosen athletes into the role that they have to win this game. I did get to play a few points, but it was already too late to try to win the game. So I’m going to remember that game forever as the situation which I want to avoid in my career now. I want to be the player that they choose no matter what team I’m on or no matter how new I am. I always want to just stick out like that.

But for positive, I would say the gold medal match in zones for Grade 9, where, for our school, we’re a very small school, we didn’t have any club volleyball players at that time, we were going against teams which had people that were playing club for three, four years, and we had to try to compete and fight for that. We had really good chemistry on our team and we knew each other so well that we trusted each other to the point that we just knew what everyone would do in a match. So when it came time to zones, which are a very high-level opportunity, the first year we got a try in Grade 9 to win that tournament, we just went out and played as hard as we could. We knew that if we lost, we wouldn’t be disappointing anyone because we made it this far already. We kept going out with a great attitude, just having a blast. It was the most fun tournament we ever played. And in the end we managed to walk away with the zones banner, which for us was making school history too. It was the first time the boys had ever won that so that moment was one of the happiest of my career ever. Not mostly because of the banner but because of everything we had to do to get to that point. I don’t mean to sound cheesy here, but the journey to get there was pretty hard for us, but we just still managed to come out on top and it felt really good.

Do you have anything advice for those going into high school and considering sports?

I think the biggest thing is that you have to expect it to be harder than you think. When I went into high school I thought, oh this is pretty easy, because school has always come to me more easily. But because of the lazy attitude I’ve had, my lack of work ethic, I quickly realized you have to start trying immediately ad be prepared to work a lot more than you think. The same thing goes for athletics. You might play it a low level just for fun, like Timbit’s soccer, it’s not really much about the practice, it’s about going out and having fun. But once you decide to continue that sport the practices become a lot tougher and you have to start regulating what you’re eating, how much you’re working out. These certain things start to shape your life and if you decide to pursue high level athletics you have to be ready to fulfill those tasks or else you’re not going to work.

How about your career aspirations? Have they been in any way shaped by sports?

They’ve kind of changed over the years. Where at the beginning I just thought oh, this is pretty fun, and I’ll just play in high school. Then once I started playing club then I thought okay, let’s take it to the next level and try for, say, a professional team. Once I realized how many teams there were I decided I really want to try to be the best in the world at my sport. Which is of course every athlete’s dream, but it’s just really made me think more big picture, and honestly, it’d be amazing if I got to be on the Olympic team for this sport and represent Canada.